Bud Bender, Avatar of Herb - Book 1: The First Grow

Sup guys,

I finally got around to taking some pics of my setup, and get this thing rolling. After spending the requisite time with my nose buried in books, I ended up with the following to get me going:

Growlab 4'x8' grow tent
NFT hydro - 3 rows, 6-5-6 net pots (17 total)
GrowUFO 90 Watt LEDs x2
Thnking coco fiber, but I may go hydroton
All kinds of fans
Strains: Crystal (White Widow x Northern Lights), Afgani, and some misc bonus seeds; all from Attitude

This is my first time growing herb, and first time playing around with hydro, but I've been an avid gardener for years (veggies, bonsai, and aquaponics). It's been a blast so far and I haven't even gotten to the real fun part.



I'm actually in Day 3 of the grow. Looks like 100% germination so far, so I'm stoked about that; especially for my first stab at it. I started half the seeds using papertowel (transferred to rockwool at 3/4") and half strait in rockwool. Water was ph'd at 6 beforehand, and rockwool was soaked for 24 hours prior to use. The labels are ghetto, but it's all I had on hand for now.



The NFT is going in the tent tomorrow, so I'll post more pics of that later.

Would love to get some feedback!

~Bud

Got my NFT all set up. Here's the stats on the my first reservoir fill:

10 gallons of tap water, Ph'd to 6.0 with Mad Farmer Get Down
20ml of EM1
10ml of Liquid Karma
10ml of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt
15ml of PureBlend Pro Grow

Ph raised to 6.4 by nutrients. Dropped back to 5.8 with Mad Farmer.

I went with 10% strength on everything since the plants are seedlings. Feedback would be great!

Subscribed. I'm interested in seeing how this grow is gonna go.

Sup guys,

Just a quick update. My plants were getting all spindly and falling over at about 5" tall. I'm thinking 2 UFO's just isn't enough light to cover my tent. The box says they cover an 8x8 area... Yea... Not so much. I added 3 6500K CFL's last night, lowered my lights to about 1' up, and lowered my fans. I'll probably add 3 more CFL's today, for a total of 6 CFL's and 2 UFO's. Think that'll be enough for a 4x8 tent?

I also replanted some of them lower down in the coco pots to shorten the height, and staked them all up with bamboo. Pretty sure I saved all but one of em.

I'll toss some pics up later tonight.

Watch your temps. CFLs will add alot more heat

Yea, I added a shit ton of CFL's today, and it bumped up my temp like 8 degrees. I have 18 CFLs (6500K, 27W) and the 2 UFO's. Temp spiked to 90, so I turned my room ac down to 75 and turned up the exhaust fan on the tent. I'm gonna watch it close tomorrow afternoon, and if it gets too high, I'll take out some CFLs probly.

Plants are doing pretty good for the most part. I've been battling some heat issues though since I added all the extra lights. It was getting up to 90 sometimes, but I've got it back down to 85ish during the hottest parts of the day.

First reservoir change:

10 gallons of tap water, Ph'd to 5.8 with Mad Farmer Get Down
20ml of EM1 (50% strength)
50ml of Liquid Karma (50% strength)
20ml of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt (about 40% strength)
37ml of PureBlend Pro Grow (about 50% strength)

I went with around 50% strength on everything as the plants transition from seedling to veg.

Should I do 100% next time, basically just following the feed chart? I've read in some places I should stick at 40-50% and others just say to follow the chart. Any suggestions?

Pics to follow shortly.

Day 14 pics. I've got one plant (A7) that looks like it's not gonna make it, but everybody else is looking good. A=Afgani, C=Crystal, U=Bonus seeds.

Nice you got a good set-up there! I think those UFO's work with tighter clusters of plants best and you gotta have 'em quite close to the top of the plants. I'm on my first grow too my seeds just started germing.

Subbed to this, once I find out how, as I'm using an NFT set-up as well (a bit more ghetto than yours and I can't really find a lot of other growers using this set-up

Thanks for the sub matchbox. I've been pretty happy with my NFT so far. The guys over at Green Hands of Aloha here in Oahu really do a nice job putting stuff together. Word of advice with the UFO; you need to supplement lighting for them to work! I started with just the 2 UFOs and the plants got really strung out.

Update for today: My ph was pretty high, 6.9. I'm thinking the nutes did it. Other than that, plants are all doing well.

I tinkered with the lighting some more today. Replaced most of the CFLs with 8 4' 6500K T8 fluorescent lights. It added a bunch of lumens, and from what Ive read, the T5s provide more even light.

Here's some pics.

BTW - Watched The Last Airbender today. It was pretty much the worst movie I've ever seen... So if you're thinking about checking it out, I'd suggest just smashing your fingers with a hammer instead. It's less painful.

Thanks for the info on supplementing my UFO's (when I get one)

Any Updates on the girls?

I'm on Day 21 and they're looking great so far. I had a TON of growth this week on all but the one who died. No signs of sex yet as far as I can tell. I'm thinking I'll veg for another 3 weeks and then switch to flower and see what I end up with. I don't have a space for cloning set up yet...

Here's some pics. I'd love to get feedback!

Mahalo.

just a word for you, if you want a serious harvest get rid of the lighting you have now and add a 600 hps with a sealed hood with a 6 inch in line fan to air cool the hood! you will have a lot healthier plants and a huge harvest. leds are total bs! i am a master grower from the last 21 years just so you don't think it is just my opinion i have tested all the leds on the market, and as to date they are a joke. just buy an air cooled hooded 600 hps and an inline 6 inch fan to cool it and stand back and watchthe fireworks you will thank me later.
good luck

My only complaint about the LEDs so far is coverage area. I need like 5 to cover my tent, not 2 as advertised. I was looking at HPS vs LED when I started setting up the tent, but I was worried about heat and power consumption. If this grow doesn't go well, I'll probably switch, but I want to see how this one plays out first. Im either gonna get 3 more UFOs, or switch to 2 600watt HPS after this. We'll see...

You can get LED's anything from the 90w UFO up to 500w grow panels, I'm going to invest in a 200w Red LED lamp for flowering somewhere down the line once I have my UFO's
(the 200w LED's @ £200 work out cheaper than a full HPS set-up @ about £250 round here)

And as in the LED thread, It's all about experimentation... giving the LED companies more money so they can research newer technologies.

Sup guys,

I made a bunch of improvements today, trying to get this thing dialed in right. My room has had a nice lemon/citrus skunk smell for the last couple days. So first off, I put together a custom carbon filter and jury-rigged it to my vornado fan. I'm not sure the fan is gonna be strong enough, so I may replace it soon with a proper in-line fan... We'll see.

Second off, my temps have been hanging out around 88 during the warmest part of the day, so I moved my tent over top of a window ac. (See pic) I'm also gonna change my light schedule a bit so the lights aren't on during the hottest part of the day.

Last, did another resevour change and pushed all my nutrient levels to max, following the Bontanicare feeding chart. I'm really worried about nute burn, so I'll be keeping an eye out for that too. If all goes well, I'm gonna stay in veg for another 2 weeks with this reservoir, then switch over to flower.

15 gallons of tap water, Ph'd to 5.8 with Mad Farmer Get Down
56ml of EM1 (100% strength)
150ml of Liquid Karma (100% strength)
56ml of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt (100% strength)
150ml of PureBlend Pro Grow (100% strength)

I'm still learning, so if I fucked anything up, don't be afraid to say something!

Pics to follow very shortly.

Pics! As promised...

Great set up man I hope everything goes well...Question, I have all of those hook ups for the 6 cfl's but where did you find the gold lamp connector to connect them all to that one source?

reazon said:

Great set up man I hope everything goes well...Question, I have all of those hook ups for the 6 cfl's but where did you find the gold lamp connector to connect them all to that one source?

Click to expand...

It's a bunch of cheap pieces from Home Depot. There's an adapter that turns a light socket into two power outlets and a light socket... if that makes sence. So the 2power/1light adapter goes in the actual light socket. Then I used 2 power outlet to light socket adapters, one on each side and sorta built out from there. Probably a major fire hazard or something, but it worked like a champ until I took it apart to make room for the T8's.

I definately don't feel I have enough light right now, but I don't quite have the funds to fix it yet.